Slice without fear, cook without bounds

How to Cut Potatoes

I wanted to make pasta the other night, but I was in the middle of something so I asked my husband to boil some water for me. First, he asked where to start. So I instructed him to fill a pot with water and boil it. I was only half paying attention since I was trying to multitask. I finished my task and started in on the rest of dinner; fish and veggies.

My fish was about halfway done cooking and my water was still not boiled which was strange, but I gave it a little more time.

I chopped up my veggies and returned to my pot. Still not boiled! That’s when I checked the knob for the stove…

It was at a two.

When I asked why, he looked at me quizzically and asked if that was wrong.

Occasionally I ask myself if having a blog to help people learn how to cut fruits and vegetables actually makes any sense. And then things like this happen that make me remember that everyone needs to learn basic skills at some point like cutting pineapple or boiling water in order to have a healthy life.

Now my husband is a really smart guy and really sweet. But if I didn’t make food for him then he would eat cereal 90% of the time.

There’s no shame in not knowing things yet (however, I do think that my husband should know how boiling water works), but I truly believe that these are necessary skills that every single person should know and I hope that I get to have a tiny bit of influence on you getting to lead a healthier life!

___

Today I’m going to talk about how to cut potatoes. Frankly, this is not a complex skill, but I have a few ideas of how to make it just a little bit easier.

1. Gather your supplies.

Chef’s Knife

Vegetable Peeler (if you can’t find one stop by the end of this post for a tip)

Cutting Board

Potato

2. Peel the sides of your potato.

I feel safest when my fingers are as far from the peeler as possible. For that reason, I:

Hold on to the top of the potato.

Hold it vertically at a slight angle so i can see the whole area that I’m peeling.

Start with my peeler at the top so there’s no slipping, and drag it to the bottom.

After each strip, I turn my potato slightly with my top hand.

P.S. You definitely don’t have to peel your potato. A lot of fiber is in the skin and it adds good texture if you keep it on. But it’s definitely your call.

3. Peel the ends of your potato.

For this part I still try to keep the end down as much as possible, but there’s less of a science to this. Just remember to protect your fingers and do the ends last so you have something to hold onto while peeling the sides of the potato.

4. Get rid of the skins, place a long side down, and make two or three slices length-wise into your potato.

5. Put your potato pieces back together, turn your potato 90 degrees, and make two or three new slices length-wise.

6. Keep your potato pieces together as much as you can. Turn your potato so you’re cutting across the short side now, hold onto the potato on your non-dominant side, and make four to six slices.

7. And boom! Potatoes chopped. This should come in handy with all those picnics you attend if you’re a potato salad kind of person!

TIP: If you can’t find a vegetable peeler here’s what you do.

Slice off both ends.

Set your potato vertically so it’s sitting on a flat end.

Place your blade right between the potato and the skin, and carve down. Continue this process the whole way around.

You’ll lose more potato this way than if you have a vegetable peeler handy, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do!